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Where and How We Live; for lara
Topic Started: May 22 2008, 07:26 PM (215 Views)
Regullus
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Reliant
I have several questions for everybody:

What type of areas do you live in or near? Forinstance, metropolitan, rural, etc. If you live in a rural area what is the closest cultural center?

IIRC, most of us (Our HUGE group of ... what? 6? :lol: ) live in Metro areas.

For me, the closest Metropolitan center would be Boston, Massachussetts, almost 2 hrs away and a different state. We do have largish cities (sorta kinda) in NH (we have a VAST pop. of a million) but if you were going to go to Big City, it would be Boston. Concerts you could go to Manchester, New Hampshire (Still, an hour away.).

What are your public transit systems?

How often do you avail yourself to cultural aspects of the city or the city's diversity? (Yes, I'll accept Ethiopian food on Thursdays.)
tempus_teapot
 
I'd like to add that at this point I have taken my Spider Jerusalem action figure and tied his wrist to my Cassidy (from Preacher) action figure just so I can work out which positions are feasible with them and which aren't.

Read that and weep, internet. Weep!

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Nibsi
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Te zijner tijd
We don't really have big cities here like you have them over there. Amsterdam is our biggest city, and there are about 700.000 to 800.000 people living there. Instead, all our cities are so close together that there are only a few parts of our country where there is widespread nature.

I live in a relatively rural area, here on the border with Germany. Still, the fact that I'm on campus makes it pretty lively. The campus is between Hengelo and Enschede. We mostly go to Enschede for our cultural needs, it's a real student city with about 150.000 inhabitants. Very nice place.
Personally I don't go there too often. Mostly just to get stuff I can't get on campus like music, books, games etc.

The advantage of everything being so packed together is that you can go anywhere on your bicycle. Back at my parents' place I had friends in cities and towns all over the region, and you'd cycle to all the places without problems. Cycling is big here. Nearly every road has a separate cycling lane next to it, and we even have special laws to protect cyclists from other traffic.

Public transport is quite well organized here, I use our trains every few weeks to visit my parents on the other side of the country, which is a 3 hour travel. I've already shown this to Inky, but maybe some of you might be interested as well:

http://www.johnhuizer.nl/nskaart.gif

Roughly, the green in the east is Germany and the green in the south is Belgium. If you follow the border with Germany, you might spot Enschede station. When I visit my folks I hop on a train or bus roughly at Enschede Drienerlo (Between Enschede and Hengelo) and get on an Intercity following the blue line to Almelo, Deventer, Apeldoorn and eventually Amersfoort. In Amersfoort I have to get on another Intercity which goes up to Amsterdam CS. There I finally get on a Sprinter up north, in the direction of Alkmaar. I get out at Uitgeest where I'm picked up by one of my folks.
-Nibby
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lara
Unregistered

Reg, this should be its own thread, or it'll get lost in random chat. Nibby, how much does the train cost?

(I will respond when not at work waiting for our computer program to reboot.)
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Nibsi
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Te zijner tijd
It's free traveling for me because I have a public transport membership card (everyone here gets one from the gov't for as long as they're in University or College). You can get a membership for the weekends (Friday after 12:00 until Monday 6:00) or for weekdays. During the week I have to pay around €14,- for a one way ticket (with 40% reduction from my membership) from Hengelo to Uitgeest.
-Nibby
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
Melbourne's city area is only a few kilometres big, but the surrounding suburbs spread out for miles. There are areas of low density housing towards the north east, but most are high density. All areas have got shopping centres, and there are lots of movie theatres, and most shopping strips are full of cafes and restaurants. Older suburbs (and richer ones) have the most variety. As different migrant move into areas, they set up shops and restaurants.

I live within a short walk of the train station, which takes me in to the city within half an hour (or I can drive- takes the same time) for sporting and theatrical events: but I can walk down the street to Thai, Italian, Turkish, Chinese and Greek places, and a twenty minute drive takes me to Vietnamese heaven.

Our train system stops well short of the outer suburbs. The lines radiate out from the city centre, and the suburbs are built around them. The system ahs been in disarray since it was privatised: we are currently having hot debate about fixing it. The government prefers to let private companies build more roads, sadly.

Our other great debate is how dense housing should be. The Plan is called Melbourne 2030 . The government wants to have more units and blocks of flats built in existing areas, rather than having the suburbs eat the entire state. However, they don't want to spend any money upgrading the water pipe system, roads, parking or trains in order to support the increased population, and think the people complaining about having a nice multi-story block of flats next to them are just whingers.


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lara
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Kopi Luwak
Regullus
May 22 2008, 07:26 PM
What type of areas do you live in or near?

What are your public transit systems?

How often do you avail yourself to cultural aspects of the city or the city's diversity? (Yes, I'll accept Ethiopian food on Thursdays.)

I live in Toronto. The metropolitan area is home to about six million people. SUCKS!

Our transit is OK, I guess. I insisted we buy a home close to the subway (which has all of four lines -- two north-south, two east-west). We also have buses and streetcars. What seems to be the most efficient people-mover is the GO Train, which is a double-decker train that runs people in from out in the burbs and nearby smaller cities. The subway costs $109 a month for a pass, or $2.75 a ride, or $22.50 for ten tokens or tickets. It's cheaper for students -- about half price, I think -- and my kidlet rides for something like 70 cents.

We eat out more than we should, and particularly like a sushi place run by a Korean man. But we also often go to a place called Jawnny Baker's that serves up your standard variety of Americanized dishes -- burgers, pizza, pastas, steaks, fajitas, etc. I love Thai and we have some good places in our neighbourhood, but my husband's not a fan. We've also got some Caribbean restaurants and used to have an Ethiopean restaurant in the 'hood, but we find the food of inconsistent quality. I wish we could find a good Caribbean place. Lots of Halal places, but I find Indian food often too heavy for my tastes. I eat a good deal of Thai and Mexican food at work because that's what's open and good.

We go to kids' plays sometimes. We saw a few big shows, a couple of rock concerts and not enough classical concerts before my daughter was born. Mostly, we try to get out of town, or do things like go to Riverdale Farm (an old farm in the city that's run by the city and volunteers the old-fashioned way -- hand milking, etc.) or the zoo or the Science Centre.

We might go to a baseball game this summer and to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on stage at Christmas.

Stuff is really expensive here, so going to a show is a rare treat. Our social life tends to revolve around Katya. When we go out (once every couple of months), it's just to relax, and we usually do dinner and a movie.

We used to like driving out to the grape-growing region and visit wineries on weekends. We've done it once since Katya was born, a trip to Niagara Falls with my sister and her husband that incorporated one winery tour and dinner.
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Krazy
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I haz powah!
Hmm, I live in the most expensive city in the world. The bit I'm in which is currently annexed to Warsaw, as there is a very large Polish influx - I go outside and half the people there speak Polish - and I now have several Polish delicatessens, cafes and shops within 5 mins walk. Even the local supermarket now devotes a shelf to cater for them.

Public transport is hideously expensive, £2 for a single bus fare (no matter how many stops) isn't particularly good value even if you travel the whole bus route, and is just downright exorbitant for a few stops and the tube system is far worse, £2.80 or so for a single fare, although the £6+ travel card (tube and bus in the paid for zones) after 9.30am isn't too bad if you are doing lots of travel. There is the money-swiping Oyster pre-pay system that's for frequent users that reduces fares, but all I've heard about is complaints where it keeps charging max fares when it doesn't register use of the card. (Technology!) Needless to say I avoid using the public transport system wherever possible, it's inconvenient, dirty, slow and doesn't go where I want.

In terms of kulchar, as you can only get to most of it via public transport unless you like paying exorbitant fees to enter the city centre (die horribly in a ditch Ken Livingstone, beaten by Boris, hah!) and then lots more when you car gets ticketed because the traffic wardens work late night to prey on people, I don't really go to visit all the theatres, musicals, operas etc that are on. Mind you, I hate musicals, so most of the West End shit is right out anyway, but it's there.
There's also loads of touristy shit, and as a resident here, I can never be arsed to visit, although I do go to things like the British Museum a lot.

As you can imagine in this wonderful, with the highest amount of cc camera surveillance we also have restaurants and take-aways galore, and I can within a short walk/drive get pretty much whatever I want.

Nearby are parks and a river, with lots of green and a long parkside walk following the river that can be pleasant enough. There's even an inner city farm nearby.

Still I farking' love London.
"Well, ‘course dis one’s betta! It’s lotz ‘eavier, and gots dem spikey bitz on de ends. "
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Bex
puppet dictator
I am in Edmonton, Alberta. We sport the worst suburban sprawl in all of North America, if I am not mistaken. And we lurrrrrrvvvvves our cars, although I don't drive.

Public transit is not terrific, though improvements are in the works. It's cheaper than Toronto, I guess, and much cheaper than London.

Cultural aspects and diversity? How so? I visit the library weekly, enjoy attending live music events and poetry readings and plays when I can. There are many festivals in summer, and the Fringe is big for us. I have favorite restaurants but also like trying new things... but I also like to cook.

My lifestyle has a lot of flexibility, I would say.
I belong to one of those families that does not speak to or see its members as often as we should,
but if someone needed anyone to fall on a sword for her, there would be a queue waiting to commit the deed.
-Min Jin Lee
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Joe
Coffea Canephora
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley are less than an hour's drive from where I live; SF is the obvious cultural center of the area, though Berkeley is also important because of certain political movements. The level of diversity in the Bay Area is incredible.

Our public transportation is the
Bay Area Rapid Transit.

My city isn't enormous; the population is below 40,000.
In the shadow of the light from a black sun
Frigid statue standing icy blue and numb
Where are the frost giants I've begged for protection?
I'm freezing
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Inky
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Thai
Man oh man, I love where I live. I've posted pictures of the city and some of the surrounding areas, but I think it's just lovely. Boulder has about 90,000 residents, almost half coming from the University of Colorado. We have pretty high taxes, but they go to good use. Our roads are well maintained, we have excellent bike paths and bus systems, our library is stunning, and we're surrounded by 31,000 acres of open space...just on the buildable areas. We bump right up against the Front Range, which is the first bit of the Rocky Mountains. We get some pretty interesting weather, being right between the mountains and the plains. It's a bit dry, though we're in a relatively moist valley and have higher humidity than most of Colorado. Denver, which has about 4 million residents, is roughly half an hour away. The Continental Divide is not much farther in the opposite direction. Boulder is very liberal, which sets it off from most of the rest of the state. We have a pretty substantial international population. Most of our minorities are Hispanic laborers, and if you see a black person, odds are good that they are African, most likely from Senegal.

I live in the relatively quiet northern end of town, though I do live on a pretty busy road. My house is a duplex, and the woman on the other side is a biddy, but I've been here for two years and the war is cold; we pretty much ignore each other as best we can. I have a cute little yard with fruit trees, a grape vine, rhubarb, and other plants, although I've neglected it a bit this year.

I'm hoping my new roommate will help with some of the work I don't have time to do. My half of the building is a little larger than I can occupy or comfortably afford alone, so a very good friend is going to be moving in with me in another week or so. Bex, you know the guy, it's, uh, Silviath, but I think he'd prefer it if certain folks we are in email contact with didn't know, since I've acquired a certain reputation. It'll be nice to have a friend in the house, and I'm very much looking forward to introducing him to my friends here.

Boulder's a very athletic town, many Olympic athletes live here and others merely train. We have some of the finest rock climbing in the country in our backyards, including the world-famous Eldorado Canyon, which is lots of fun but very dangerous (fair bit of loose rock). I feel pretty lucky to live in such a lovely, liberal city, where if I were so inclined I could go out on classic climbing routes every day of the week. (I make do with one to three times a week.) I'm able to get around entirely by bicycle, and I generally do.
_____________
Jobbar du naken?
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Bex
puppet dictator
Inky
Jun 1 2008, 06:29 PM
Bex, you know the guy, it's, uh, Silviath, but I think he'd prefer it if certain folks we are in email contact with didn't know, since I've acquired a certain reputation.

Ah'm trustworthy.

I think the arrangement could be very good for both of you.
I belong to one of those families that does not speak to or see its members as often as we should,
but if someone needed anyone to fall on a sword for her, there would be a queue waiting to commit the deed.
-Min Jin Lee
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Regullus
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Reliant
Interest piqued.
tempus_teapot
 
I'd like to add that at this point I have taken my Spider Jerusalem action figure and tied his wrist to my Cassidy (from Preacher) action figure just so I can work out which positions are feasible with them and which aren't.

Read that and weep, internet. Weep!

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Eral
Kopi Luwak
What? There are those who don't think you are totally fab, Inky? :o
Your enemies are our enemies. :trouble:

;D
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Bex
puppet dictator
I think it's likely that Silviath can do without people potentially speculating about his sex life. I can't say as I blame him.

Everyone knows men and women can't be just friends... and certainly not if they're living together.
I belong to one of those families that does not speak to or see its members as often as we should,
but if someone needed anyone to fall on a sword for her, there would be a queue waiting to commit the deed.
-Min Jin Lee
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Inky
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Thai
Life would be entirely too dull without ANY enemies, and I think "enemy" is too strong a word to use anyway.

So where would y'all live, if you could live anywhere? Lately I've really been liking the idea of moving to Australia in two years or so. I'd at least start with a volunteer program like WWOOF so I had some flexibility, and I'd want to find an area near the ocean with decent climbing. I've always thought Australia was nifty, since I was a kid reading appallingly saccharine May Gibbs books.
_____________
Jobbar du naken?
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Bex
puppet dictator
I'm really obnoxiously Edmonton-centric. What I want is for people to move here to live closer to me.
I belong to one of those families that does not speak to or see its members as often as we should,
but if someone needed anyone to fall on a sword for her, there would be a queue waiting to commit the deed.
-Min Jin Lee
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Inky
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Thai
I love love love Boulder, and I couldn't be more thrilled that I'm getting the kid out here on a semi-permanent basis (okay, just until he goes to grad school), but I have no man, no dog, no mortgage or car payment, and it'd be a damn shame not to take advantage of my mobility while I can.
_____________
Jobbar du naken?
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
I want to live on a hill where I could look out my window and only see a few houses, maybe even just trees. And perhaps a creek. I love the sound of running water. I would have a nice big garden, but no lawn to mow. The beach would be a five minute walk away, because I love walking on the beach, even when the wind is blowing from the Antarctic (and that's saying something.)
I would still need to be within walking distance to supermarkets, chemist, bank, post office and an extremely large shopping centre or two would need to be within a ten to twenty minute drive.

I'm horribly suburban. :rolleyes:
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lara
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Kopi Luwak
Winnipeg.
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Nibsi
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Te zijner tijd
I've always been thinking about living in Japan. Germany or somewhere in Scandinavia (Denmark comes to mind).

I'm likely to move over to Canada between now and four years though. Pretty psyched about that B)
-Nibby
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Regullus
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Reliant
I've been slow to answer because I don't have an answer. :rolleyes:

I lived a long time in the Eastern US and I'm used to it and the people. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I would like to visit a lot of places but I don't think there's any I particularly want to live. I'd like to visit Venice and all over Italy, Australia, I like to go to Ireland again, also England and Scotland. I did want to visit Austria but all those cellar lockups and mass killings by nurses has made me nervous. :blink:

I have always said I would either live in the city or the country and so far I've stuck to that.

I enjoy the country and I enjoy seasons. I think I would opt for living in the country over the city these days. When I was young, I loved living in cities. Today, I like to visit cities.

tempus_teapot
 
I'd like to add that at this point I have taken my Spider Jerusalem action figure and tied his wrist to my Cassidy (from Preacher) action figure just so I can work out which positions are feasible with them and which aren't.

Read that and weep, internet. Weep!

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Burgundy
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Used to be alright; what happened?
I live in in the middle of nowhere in one of the most agricultural places in England. Bonuses? Asparagus grows literally on our doorstep, and is therefore dirt cheap. :D

However, the average age increases every year and it is highly likely the village I live in will die, possibly in my lifetime. I don't feel disapoointed or annoyed being far away from any metropolitan areas, because they don't rub with me. Expensive, polluted, crowded, and everyone just seems to rush everywhere, it's like they lost their soul to their morning coffee or something.

Oh, and there aren't many finer sights than seeing a Massey-Ferguson disappear over the cusp of the hill again to piss off more people on the B-road.
"Though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Ulysses
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LizDiggory
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Breakfast
Posted Image

This is my house in google earth. ^_^

Memphis, Tennessee ala Wikipedia
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